How does a person learn to read? For that matter how does a person learn to speak? When does a child or an adult begin to understand the meaning behind the words of the language that they are reading or speaking?
Reading or even speaking any language are skills that must be taught. Children or adults learning a new language do not just happen upon the skills of speaking or reading and comprehension simply by chance. Parents don’t often think about it, but by merely speaking to their infants and interacting with them, they begin to teach their children to put together the pleasant burblings and blabbering noises of infant-hood and begin to form speech. The way in which the speech is used by the parents teaches the child to begin to understand the meaning behind the words being spoken. The process of acquiring language skills may be faster for some people than for others, but regardless of the inborn talents of an individual, the process of language acquirement remains the same: It always requires some amount of time with repetitive exposure to the language to be learned, and perhaps most importantly, it requires a teacher, a person already skilled in that language teaching the student the true meaning and nuance of the language being learned.
Language understanding requires a teacher, a translator, if you will, to bring understanding to the otherwise ignorant and dumb (unable to speak) individual.
This is very much what the Holy Spirit does. Over the last many Sundays we have heard Scriptures and sermons which have spoken about Jesus and who He was and is and how He would be sending the Holy Spirit to the disciples. Even to our ears, none of these Scriptures would have any meaning without the Holy Spirit opening our hearts and minds by His power working through God’s Word and sacraments. It is only by His bringing people like us to faith that we can be given true understanding.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit. We confess in the Nicene Creed: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son are worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. In the Small catechism we confess: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the one true faith. In the same way, He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.”
Today on Pentecost Sunday we celebrate that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit upon His disciples on that first Pentecost. We celebrate because in His mercy He sent the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Himself and to the salvation which He accomplished. The disciples, blinded by ignorance and unbelief like all humans begin, were still learning the language of God’s Word and the Good News of Jesus Christ. They heard the words of Jesus for three years. They knew that they had power, but much like a human child for the first 3 years of their life don’t fully understand the language to speak it or understand the true meaning of what is spoken, so too did the disciples often struggle with what Jesus was telling them. It was only by the power of the Holy Spirit sent by the Ascended Christ that the disciples’ education was accelerated at Pentecost, that they were finally brought to the point of true understanding by faith in Jesus Christ. It was, therefore, by the power of the Holy Spirit that Peter and the disciples were able to bear witness to the truth and good news of Jesus Christ so boldly and clearly. Their own minds and tongues which had been held captive by reason, unbelief, and ignorance were now made instruments of praise and proclamation to bear witness to Jesus Christ.
On that Pentecost morning there was a rushing sound as a great wind, and tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
The temporary tongue of flame represented the purifying power of the Holy Spirit. It was as though the disciples’ tongues were now purified to speak the Holy things of God. The tongue of flame also showed that the Holy Spirit would work through the words of their tongues to give understanding to their hearers and by that fire, refine their hearts to gold in repentance and faith by the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The languages or tongues which the disciples were given to speak were not strange babblings and gibberish as a sign of one who was possessed of demons or new wine. These tongues or glossai (in the Greek) refer to dialects and languages. Suddenly these humble fisherman, tax collectors, and other uneducated were able to speak foreign languages without the instruction of time or repetition. It was by the power and instruction of the Holy Spirit.
This speaking was not a sign for the disciples. The languages which each disciple spoke was God’s instrument and sign to all those present who had come from different lands in Jerusalem for the festival of Pentecost: the message that the news of Jesus Christ was for all people of all languages. The confusion of languages at the tower of Babel is ultimately undone in the central message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the interpretation of the Holy Spirit.
This speaking in different languages is, according to the prophet Joel, a sign that we are in the last days. Contrary to many Christians who believe in different times or dispensations and the counting of millennia, Peter is here saying and we confess with him, that the last Days refers not to a specific amount of time but to the post resurrection of Jesus-New Testament time. Since Pentecost we have been in “the Last Days”.
The sign of these tongues served their purpose: to show forth the power of God working through His Word and sacraments. That the Holy Spirit pointed to Jesus. He was there to convict and to comfort, to bear witness to the truth of Gods Law and Gospel, to declare the salvation of Jesus Christ and the mercies of God.
It is the Holy Spirit who continues to work through the Word of God and sacrament in these latter days. He continues to convict us and all sinners of sin by the Law, but He then also leads and points to the cross of Jesus Christ. He converts us from slaves to sin to being freed in Christ and heirs of eternal life by the forgiveness of sin won for us by Christ at the cross. In Holy Baptism we were changed by the washing of Water and the Word as the old was cast away and Christ put upon us. It is the Holy Spirit who continues to turn men’s and women’s hearts from the ignorant dead deaf people that they were and teaches them the language of God’s Word by giving them faith or restoring them in the faith in the message of promise of forgiveness in the cross of Christ. In this way He gives ears to hear and tongues to speak even in our human languages the great mysterious wonders of the good news of Jesus Christ. So, in our hymns and confessions and creeds we bear witness to the truth that the Spirit has born witness to us.
In the Sacrament of the Altar we are gathered in one place, and the Spirit teaches us to accept by faith that here is Jesus offering us forgiveness of sins and life in his body and blood in the bread and wine. He is opening our hearts and our minds, our ears and our mouths, to believe and confess. Once again, the Holy Spirit, not by tongues of fire or different tongues gives us the joy and ability to speak: to witness to one another and to the world the great mercies which we have now received in Jesus Christ by the forgiveness of our sins.
It is the Holy Spirit who continues to deliver God’s Word to us and delivers our prayers to Him so that He may return with God’s comfort. It is the Holy Spirit who continues to restore us in Christ even when we sin and repent and confess. He is always pointing us back to our Savior and ahead to the time when He shall give us the breath of new life at the end of time when He shall raise us up from the dead and give unto us and all believers in Christ eternal life. All people of all times, nations, languages, and races made one, once and for all in Jesus Christ! Thanks be to God for the work of the Holy Spirit who teaches us the language of God’s grace and forgiveness that we may understand, speak, and believe in Jesus Christ our Savior.
Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas